


Blood In, Blood Out

by somebetterwords



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Gen, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-10-06
Packaged: 2018-04-25 04:35:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4946911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somebetterwords/pseuds/somebetterwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt’s been watching them for over a year now. He should have been able to figure out what they were before he became one himself.</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="http://somebetterwords.tumblr.com/post/130634235119/blood-in-blood-out">Read on Tumblr.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood In, Blood Out

**Author's Note:**

> For Day 5 of kurtoberfest, “Witches.” Set in some nebulously alternative universe, around the time of Home/Laryngitis. This was originally a horror comedy kind of thing but then it got kinda sad like??? Could very well be expanded into a verse, but then most everything I write comes with that possibility. Shoutout to my homegirl Halsey because Badlands radio is all I listened to while writing this thing.
> 
> Additional warnings: mention of canon dubcon (Quinn sleeping with Puck), one instance of fatphobia (Sue is evil, etc.), mention of arson, child death (Sue is evil, etc.)

Honestly, Kurt is pissed with himself that he didn’t figure it out on his own. He’ll cut himself some flack, because he doesn’t get a whole lot of exposure to horror movies and the like, and literally nobody would arrive to this conclusion first thing without a little coaxing, but he has watched _The Craft_ (kind of, he got a little bored halfway through and switched to a marathon of _Say Yes To the Dress_ ). So he should have guessed! He’s been watching them— out of envy, out of fascination, out of longing— for over a year. He should have guessed by now.

And now that he does know, everything makes perfect sense.

Of course they’re all preternaturally beautiful, and fast, and strong. Of course they hold the whole school (the whole town, really… maybe the whole state) in the palm of their collective hand. Of course they have a collective hand. He’s thought them to be some sort of cult, now and again, especially when he considered their fearless leader. But they aren’t a cult— they are a _coven_. God, he’s heard them cackle so many times. Of course they’re witches!

“Not ‘they’re’ anymore, Acolyte. It’s ‘we’re’ now.”

“I haven’t even said yes yet.”

“But you will.”

Kurt looks up to see Santana Lopez regarding him calmly while she buffs her nails with a sparkly metal file the colour of rust. The reflection of candlelight dances in her eyes, but it is nothing compared to the fiery mirth that blazes out of them from behind. Her lips are quirked, as they often are. She carries herself like she knows a secret, _your_ secret, and she could tear your world asunder if you gave her any cause. She carries herself like she wishes you would.

Lima, Ohio is not a big city. People here know each other more often than not. He has known Santana Lopez since they were three years old and taking ballet together. She has always had fire in her eyes. The quirk to her lips, however, is a new addition to her countenance. One that has only been present since they entered high school. Since she joined the Cheerios.

It is there now because she _does_ and she _could_.

Trace telepathy, she had called it. She can’t read minds yet, especially in a crowd, but she’s getting there. For now, Santana can hear whispers. When you find yourself shouting in your  head, that sound carries. And it just so happens that the things that people scream loudest within themselves are the things they’d never dare to speak aloud. They don’t need to, Santana is listening anyway.

It should scare Kurt more. He should be unnerved that she heard a thought not spoken and responded as though it had been. He has only known the truth (but not the whole truth, he may never know the whole truth) for a few hours now, and yet he has already accepted it.

“How do you know?”

“I saw it with my Mexican third eye.”

“Your family is Dominican.” He remembers the flag decal on her abuela’s old car. They weren’t friends back then (and they still aren’t), so he was too afraid to just ask her what country it was for. He’d found an atlas and pored through that instead. Since then Santana’s dad has landed a job at some swanky hospital, with better pay, and the Lopezes have a shiny new car to their name, no decals or bumper stickers in sight. Kurt still remembers the old one though.

“You’ll say yes. Everyone does.”

“Mercedes won’t.” Even before they knew what they had gotten themselves into, Mercedes hadn’t liked this life. She is a wonderful cheerleader, effervescent and energetic and so talented it leaves Kurt awed. In any other high school in the country, unless there are others like McKinley, she would shine. But being an Initiate has not been good for her constitution. She couldn’t blindly imbibe the potions she was given, she wouldn’t bend herself to the coven’s will. And now? Now that she knows she will run for the hills. Mercedes Jones is a woman of God. Presented with the words, ‘dark magic,’ where Kurt saw only magic she will have undoubtedly honed in on the dark. Being a Cheerio has brought her popularity and a spotlight, but nothing they could offer her would be worth risking her eternal soul. With her only regret being that she ever unknowingly dabbled in the occult, she will walk away… no matter the cost. “What will happen to her when she doesn’t?”

“She’ll drink from the Chalice of Lethe, and she’ll forget.” Santana rolls her eyes, as if it was a stupid question to ask. “We’re not gonna kill her or anything, too much of a pain in the ass to make a murder go away. Come tomorrow, she’ll resign, and she’ll think it was her own idea.”

“It _will_ have been her own idea, it’s just the motivations that are changing a little.”

Santana’s lips lift at the corner, differently than usual. It is a far kinder look than he is used to seeing on her face in recent years. “That right there,” she says, pointing at him with her nail file. “That’s how I know you’ll say yes.”

“I don’t follow you,” Kurt admits quietly.

“Words have power, Porcelain,” she says, eyes now fixed on his fingers. She flips her file over and grabs a hand, begins buffing his nails. “You understand that well. And you made it a point to tell me you haven’t said yes _yet_.” She lifts Kurt’s hand to his lips. “Blow.”

Kurt does, and he feels little snaps of electricity shoot down his arms to the tips of his finger after the dust leaves them. “Whoa,” he whispers, staring at his fingers, then past them to Santana.

She smiles then, not a trace of malice on her face, and that _does_ unnerve Kurt a little. “Cool, right?” Santana starts on the other hand, and Kurt bounces his knee as he watches her work. “I don’t think you’ll be allowed to know what’s in this thing for a while, but basically it pulls the magic you’ve got inside you right up to your fingers.”

“I just felt _magic_ coursing through my veins?”

Santana hums in the affirmative. “On three,” she says holding her own hands up to her lips. Kurt matches her movement. “One, two,” and then they both blow.

“Ah!” The zing is much stronger the longer you leave the dust settled, apparently. “It feels like how Pixy Stix tastes!”

Santana’s smile turns into a grin. It is the first time in years Kurt has seen this girl look her age. “Oh my god, that’s exactly what I said!”

The candles around them must be magic too, because they start to burn brighter at their shared joy. But the moment is over as soon as it began, and the flames that had been steady for as long as they’ve been sitting together start to flicker. Kurt can taste tendrils of darkness creep upon their sanctum.

It’s amazing how he can feel Sue Sylvester’s presence long before he can hear her thunderous footsteps make their way towards the dark abandoned boiler room he and Santana sit in.

It has always been like this, from the moment he set foot on McKinley High grounds. If he had only focused his attention on what strangeness possessed the coach of the Cheerios rather than the Cheerios themselves, maybe he would have figured out the whole witch thing himself. Or at least that she is some sort of supernatural. But then, maybe that strangeness is exactly why he didn’t.

Anyone who comes within a tenth of a mile of Sue Sylvester can feel the power thrumming through her, even if their senses have not been opened the way Kurt’s now have. She often gets her way, he is sure, without having to exert any real force, simply because her aura is so intimidating. Kurt does not believe in God like Mercedes does. He does not believe in heaven or hell. But if demons _are_ real— witches are real, who knows what else is— he is quite positive that Sue Sylvester could slice through Earth’s crust like warm butter, crack open the mantle, and every creature of man’s nightmares would come scurrying up to kneel before their rightful queen. Of course mere mortals deflect their gaze when she approaches. It is simply survival instinct not to examine the inky darkness she exudes.

Sue Sylvester is shocking and magnificent and _terrifying_.

Without any command from his brain, Kurt is back on his feet, turned to face the door, standing ramrod straight with his hands clasped at his back. Santana darts around the table so she can be right beside him, her posture the same as his own. “Kurt,” she whispers furtively.

Kurt keeps himself oriented to the door, but he casts a glance her way. Her face has grown sallow, and there is an almost imperceptible tremor to her arms where they are locked together behind her, but her mouth is set in a determined line. “What?”

“Don’t interrupt me and listen up real good. You deserve to know that doing this is going to destroy you. No matter what, Coach will ruin you. She ruins all of us, at least a little bit.”

Kurt almost twitches his head to face her. Almost.

“Brittany’s not stupid, she never was and she isn’t now. She had too much inside her and it rushed up too quick, and it fried her ability to put thoughts to words. Now she’s fucking trapped inside her own mind. Quinn was taken advantage of and Coach _cursed_ her for it. She might give birth to a lizard baby. A lizard baby, Kurt! Half our coven is dead behind the eyes. Most of the rest will be there soon enough. Sometimes taking the blood oath is worth it, but sometimes it’s not. Coach doesn’t care what happens to us after we get out of this hell hole, as long as we’re useful to her while we’re here. She’s going to promise you greatness, but sometimes greatness is terrible. Keep your mind clear and make your own judgment call.”

Kurt wants to ask Santana exactly how Sue Kurt ruined _her_. But he would never dare, and that’s for the best, because Santana would have never had time to answer. The door bangs open in front of them, and every candle lining the room goes out, immersing them in inescapable blackness.

A snap of the fingers, and they’re all back alight. They don’t cast a natural, warm glow anymore though. No, they burn a ghastly green now. The colour warps the shadows of the room. It makes Sue Sylvester look even more frightening than usual as she stands before them. She stares at them with narrowed eyes. “What were you twats twittering about?”

“Just warning him not to become another Fabray, Coach,” Santana mutters, keeping her eyes down.

“Ah yes,” Sue says, voice dipping and rising in that nefarious way of hers. “You made yourself useful for once, Ethnic Skipper. Colour me impressed.” She drops into the seat Santana had occupied, arms crossed behind her head and legs propped on the table in front of her. “Do you remember what Q used to be like, Porcelain? Before Cheerios, I mean.”

“Can’t say I do, Coach Sylvester.” How could he? He didn’t know Quinn before Cheerios. Her family only moved to Lima at the beginning of ninth grade.

“Well, sure you do,” Sue says, totally nonchalant.

Some shroud over his mind evaporates, and Kurt is suddenly blasted with memories of middle school. He remembers a chubby girl with unkempt red hair, a collection of grandma sweaters that made Rachel Berry’s wardrobe look like high fashion, and round-framed glasses that covered half her face. He remembers how ruthless the other kids were with that girl, making what his fairy runt ass went through look like small potatoes. Kurt remembers how brilliant she was, easily the smartest girl in their whole grade. Kurt remembers being partnered with her for a class project once. He had been so shocked when he met her mother, sad in the eyes but a total blonde bombshell. Her dad had been blond too, and that confused Kurt because they explained in biology class that blond parents usually had blond children. He remembers when the girl took off her glasses and he’d been shocked at how pretty her eyes were. He remembers she had wall art of her name hanging above her desk. He remembers telling her he thought her middle name was really cool. Kurt’s knees almost give out under him with the force of everything he remembers.

“Lucy,” he mumbles.

“Lucy Caboosey!” Sue sneers and sits up properly. “I gave that girl everything, handpicked her to be my Maiden, and how does she repay me? The little _trollop_ ,” Sue slaps a palm on the table, and the candles around them blaze blue with her ire, “spreads her legs for the first street rat to get a drink in her and she gets herself pregnant!” Her rage leaves just as quick as it came, and the flames go back to a yellowish green. “She’s lucky all I’ve done so far is make her homeless. I still need more time to come up with adequate retribution.” She cocks her head at Kurt, her face taking something akin to a smile. Really, she’s just bearing her teeth. “You’ll do better than that, won’t you?”

“Of course I will, Coach.”

Sue nods once, gestures for Kurt to sit across from her. Once he’s settled, she lets out a booming shout. “Becky!”

Squeaking wheels precede her as Becky barrels in, pushing a rolling cart up to them. Santana has to jump out of the way before Becky can drive the cart over her foot. “Got everything you need, Coach!”

“Thank you, Becky.”

Becky beams at her, then steps back to stand in formation next to Santana.

Sue turns back to Kurt, pulls her chair closer to the table. “Tell me, Kurt Hummel, are you ready to be my shining star? A little birdie tells me you want to see your name in lights one day. I’m sure Juilliard will be _thrilled_ to accept the featured soloist who won cheer nationals three years running, and a recommendation letter from one Sue Sylvester certainly would grease the wheels. If it’s Hollywood you want, I’m blackmailing dozens of producers in LA. The world is your oyster.”

“And my dad?” Kurt is grateful that Sue pulled the cloak off the Lucy part of his brain, because having a handful of memories he knows are undoctored gives him a place of lucidity to hang on to. He can keep his mind clear like Santana implored him to. And with a clear mind, he realizes just how useless offers that can only come to fruition in senior year are if his mind breaks before then. His priority is promises that can be realized right now.

“What is it he does again? Some sort of plumber or something?”

“He’s a certified mechanic,” Kurt corrects her with fists clenched below the table. “And he’s a small business owner. And Hummel Tires and Lube isn’t doing too great. The recession is hitting us hard.”

“I bet it would be helpful if I mandated every Cheerio got their car serviced at your family’s shop. And you know what? West Lima Elementary’s buses are rolling deathtraps and it is _imperative_ that they replace their tires— at a local-owned business like Hummel Tires and Whatever— before the streets are littered with tiny, charred bodies, and that’s how Sue C’s it!”

“We could set the Jiffy Lube next to the Walmart on fire!”

“Outstanding,” Sue says, nodding sharply at Becky’s interjection. “And if the fire spreads to the Walmart tire express, all the better. Take the whole place down! I hate that store. So many fatties satisfying all their shopping needs in one place when they could be walking from store to store and getting some desperately needed exercise. It sickens me.” She clicks her tongue at Becky. “Write that down somewhere, that’s another segment for the show.”

“Walmart… fatties… too convenient,” Becky murmurs as she scribbles into a spiral-bound notepad produced from her jacket pocket.

“That can be your first official task once we swear you in, Porcelain. Up for the task?”

Kurt swallows around the lump in his throat and nods.

His answer is yes. His answer has always been yes. It’s not about being famous for Kurt. It’s not even about saving his dad’s business, though that is one hell of a perk. Honestly, it’s just about the basic benefits, the ones that every Cheerio gets, the ones that they don’t even have to ask for.

In his short time as an Initiate, Kurt has felt stronger than ever before in his life. He’s grown half an inch over the course of a month, been steadily losing the last of his baby fat and finding toned muscle in its place. He knows it’s not because of puberty, unless Sue Sylvester has found a way to synthesize puberty and put it in his smoothie mix.

None of the meatheads have touched him. He’s an openly gay, Broadway-loving, public school attending, twelve-year-old looking teenaged boy in Lima, Ohio… and not one soul has touched him since he donned the Cheerio uniform. The dumpster tosses, the locker shoves, the slushies, the swirlies, every form of harassment he received went the way of the dodo. He could walk down the halls of McKinley without looking over his shoulder every two feet, ready to break into a sprint. He didn’t realize just how heavy the weight of fear had been on his shoulders until that weight was gone. Kurt didn’t want to live that way again. He didn’t think he could handle going back to what high school was like before Cheerios.

Kurt is quite certain that Sue Sylvester is evil. Kurt recognizes that if God is real, He will never forgive Kurt for doing the things that Sue Sylvester will undoubtedly make him do— he’s already signed up for arson, and Santana had made it clear that murder is only avoided because it is inconvenient. Kurt knows he doesn’t have a full read on Sue’s motivations for recruiting him. (She likes them young, likes having a full four years of servitude, likes moulding freshmen to suit her purposes. To take a chance on two sophomores halfway through the year was unheard of. There is something more to why she had so suddenly wanted Kurt and Mercedes in her coven. There is a reason she suddenly wants singers so badly.) Kurt is aware he may be in over his head.

It doesn't matter. Kurt is done with being afraid and he is done with feeling weak. If this is his only way out of a constant state of helplessness then he will take it, at any price. He _is_ strong, has always been strong, and being on the Cheerios will make his outside self catch up to his inside self. It will protect him from ending up face down in a ditch on the side of the road because the wrong jock caught him at the wrong time. They won’t be catching him at all, because he won’t be prey anymore.

Santana told him to make his own judgment call and he has. It’s worth it. Cheerios might well end up breaking him a little, but he’d rather get out of Ohio with a few ugly cracks than die here after he’s been shattered to a million pieces. Sue Sylvester is offering him a fighting chance at survival. He has to take it. He has to believe in his own mental fortitude, because right now it’s all he’s got.

“I’m ready for anything you throw at me, Coach.” That isn’t exactly true. Kurt is not ready, but he doubts anyone ever is. He’ll do what’s asked of him anyway.

Sue clicks her tongue again, and then Becky is unloading things from the cart, onto the table between them. Two goblets; two earthen bowls; an obsidian blade set into a handle of bone, covered in inscriptions of a language Kurt has never seen. The words start to move when he looks at them too long, or maybe that’s just his vision swimming. There are more items waiting on the cart, but for now Becky leaves them where they are and stands at the ready.

Sue runs her finger reverentially over the markings on the knife before picking it up by the handle, holding it with the same familiarity that Kurt holds his microphone. She sends him another smile that is just the bearing of teeth. “Welcome to the coven, Kurt Hummel. Blood in, blood out.”

Kurt holds his palm out for her to slice open.


End file.
